Series Explores New Jersey...

Say "New
Jersey," and likely as not you'll conjure in many people's minds an image of
traffic congestion, malls, and aging industrial infrastructure! The
series "Jersey: A Sense of Place,"
hosted by the Institute for the Humanities at Montclair State
University, however, aspires to offer a quite different -- and much more
positive -- perspective on the state. The final
two presentations in what has been a highly successful year-long
NJCH-funded series
exploring its role as a source of inspiration for the arts and
humanities as well as for experiments in living are coming up on October
9 and
November 7, 2013.

Organized
around the themes of "Dramatizing," "Writing," "Singing,"
"Living," and "Painting" Jersey, the aim of the series has
been to provide perspectives about the ways in which the state has been
celebrated -- as both geographical reality (country, city, shore) and emotional
concept -- in both the popular media and "high" culture. The theme of the first of the two
events this fall will be "Singing Jersey," and will focus on the
music and lyrics of New Jersey's biggest home-grown rock star, Bruce Springsteen."Writing Jersey," the theme of the second
presentation, explores the works of two New Jersey writers, the Rutherford-born
poet William Carlos Williams, and the novelist Philip Roth, a Newark native.

Louis P.
Masur, co-editor (with Christopher Phillips) of the just-published Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews
of Bruce Springsteen (August 2013, Bloomsbury Press) will present "'Talk
about a dream:' Bruce Springsteen's American Vision -- from New Jersey to
the World," on Wednesday, October 9, 4-5pm in Brantl, Dickson Hall at
Montclair State University. Dr. Masur is
a Professor of American Studies at Rutgers University. His presentation will focus on Bruce
Springsteen's New Jersey origins and how his American vision was shaped by his
Jersey roots, and then carried to the world.

On
Thursday,
November 7, 2013, 4-5 p.m. in Cohen Lounge, Dickson Hall, at
Montclair State, Neil Baldwin, who is the Director of The Creative
Research
Center at MSU, and James D. Bloom, a professor of English and American
Studies
at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, will jointly present on "'The local
is the only universal:' William Carlos Williams in New Jersey"and
"Philip Roth: Newark and Beyond." Neil Baldwin is
author of Williams' biography entitled To
All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams, the Doctor-Poet, and Jim Bloom author of Gravity Fails: The Jewish Shaping of Modern
America. This presentation will discuss the way in which the Jersey-scapes
of both these Jersey-born-and-bred writers provide particularized locations for
explorations -- on a grander scale -- of American identity and of the human
condition in general.

The
series is open to the public and free of charge.

This program was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey
Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations in this
program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the
Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.